Surely you’ve all been following the case of Monsanto vs. farmers that’s been winding its way through the court system for some time now, right? Of course you have. For benefit of those of you who haven’t: Monsanto employs an army of lawyers to sue the pants off of farmers whose crops they suspect may have come from Monsanto’s patented pesticide-resistant seeds. This includes a hypothetical organic farmer who might have had a single Monsanto seed somehow make its way into his or her seed supply. In Monsanto’s eyes, and in the eyes of the lawyers they employ, the use of that single seed, accidental or not, is grounds for forcing the organic farmer to buy all their seeds from Monsanto until the end of time. Or something. And so far the courts have agreed with the company.

That said, the Daily Show dispatched Aasif Mandvi to investigate.My favorite part: the biotech patent lawyer who explains that “sometimes farmers act in a manner that is not in the best interests of the biotech seed companies.” GOOD TO KNOW!

My second favorite part: Mandvi asks a farmer critical of Monsanto’s aggressive legal tactics, “Do you know how hard it is to develop seeds? It’s not like they grow on trees.” When the farmer responds by saying that what he does is important, that his efforts feed people all over the world, Mandvi counters: “Big deal. Any hipster can grow food. They can grow tomatoes on a Williamsburg rooftop. Doesn’t take a lot of skill.”

Watch below and you’ll suddenly feel overcome with the urge to punch a patent lawyer in the face.

When I was in university I was going to go to law school, but went with a few friends to a Kaplan LSAT prep course review panel, where they basically had 12 lawyers from different sections of the legal system (a new corporate lawyer, a corporate lawyer with 20+ years experience, an ambulance chaser, etc.).

They were the most miserable group of people I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Depressed, removed from society, just plain sad. One guy said he works 80 hour weeks and “it’s not all bad, every now and then you can say ‘hey I’ll treat myself and take a weekend off'”. Another guy said he puts his work ahead of his family.

Why anyone would want to be a lawyer, I have no idea. Money ain’t everything.

@Leapin_Lizards I had a similar experience. Took the LSAT, got a decent score, but then got to know some lawyers and decided that I didn’t want their lives, basically. They weren’t bad people, but they seemed utterly miserable.

1. Some folks love the work. They might be weird but they love that type of mental gymnastics. Yeah they are removed from society or put career ahead of family, but they would be that anyway, this just gives them a structure for it.

2. Prestige: not so much nowadays but there was a time not long ago when being a lawyer, any type of lawyer, was a prestigious position in society.

3. Money: like 2 above it isn’t as good as it once was, but being a lawyer from even a pretty good law school was a ticket to six figures in your 20s, which could be hard to pass up.

4. Mission: for some types of law (criminal, constitutional, public interest, JAG) people do it because they believe in the mission and that they are making a difference, and often they are. Even if you don’t get to argue before the supreme court you make a difference for your client in a very direct way.

5. Inertia: smart? hard working? suck at math? good at being in school? Go to law school! Oh wait, you have loans that you need a lawyer salary to make good on? Better go be a lawyer.

One more I should mention: Somebody has to. If you like living in a world with the rule of law you are going to need people to administer and maintain the system, same way people need to be plumbers if we are going to have flushable toilets.

We all love hating lawyers until we need one or “our side” wins a case, but the fact is unless you want anarchy or absolute strong-man government somebody needs to fill the role.

Which would be why this piece specifically addresses patent lawyers and not, say, defense attorneys. But I’m sure as a former lawyer, you’re used to overlooking things in order to better prove your point.

I was responding to Leaping’s comment, which included the following line:

“Why anyone would want to be a lawyer, I have no idea. Money ain’t everything.”

Do you see where Leaping limited his question to patent lawyers? I don’t. If I wanted to respond to the primary article I wouldn’t have hit the “reply” button on Leaping’s comment, but I didn’t, I wanted to reply to Leaping’s comment, which wasn’t limited to patent lawyers.

The news article linked seems to indicate that Monsanto explicitly said it wouldn’t require farmers to buy all their seeds from Monsanto till the end of time and the court held that as binding on Monsanto. Until that changes there is no harm, and as such no standing.

Not Pro-Monsanto- they do some creepy stuff, but to give the other side of the story; Monsanto makes a herbicide that kills everything. They also make plants that can survive the stuff. Most farmers are willing to pay the high licensing fees to Monsanto, and sign a contract saying they will buy new seeds each year because it is saves them a lot of money in the long run. The poor farmers getting sued? Its usually not wind blew seeds in and now I’m getting sued. They often intentionally use the roundup herbicide on their fields to kill off any plants except for ones that grew from those Monsanto seeds that blew in, and then use the seeds from the survivors to grow their crops, all so the can use the Monsanto seeds without paying the fees. Often other farmers are the ones who turn these people in. Though, yes as I said Monsanto is creepy

If you want to have some real fun, read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Sacks” and focus on the part where companies use unique genetic characteristics from human genes to produce various medicinal products, then refuse to pay the producer of said genes. Good times.